Come Bitter Rain
by The Eye of The Oncoming Storm
Summary: Post season 5. Slightly Harper-centric. Pairing Harper/OC. Dylan, Beka and Harper are stranded on a desert planet with a broken down Maru. When the trio find a woman from Harper's past, everything is not as it seems...
1. Chapter 1: Come Bitter Rain

'**Come bitter rain,  
And wash from my heart  
That saddest of all worlds: Home.'  
**Ulatempa Poetess, "Song of My Exile"  
C.Y. 9825

Season 1 Episode 21 "It Makes a Lovely Light"

* * *

_Forgotten Planet at the edge of the Triangulum galaxy, C.Y. 10091_

They'd been stuck on this planet for five _very_ long weeks in cramped quarters on the Maru and everyone's patience was starting to wear a little thin.

"Harper, we might be able to find what you're looking for if you told us what you are looking for!" Dylan shouted.

Harper flinched. "I'm sorry, boss, if I knew how describe it, I would. But I can't." He ducked into yet another vendor's stall and looked around briefly before moving onto the next one.

"Then how do you know what you're looking for if you can't describe it?" Beka asked.

He shrugged. "I'll know it when I see it?" He tried.

"Harper!" Beka and Dylan yelled at the same time.

He flinched again. "I'm sorry! How many times do I have to say it, I'm sorry. I would love to tell you what I'm looking for, but I don't know what it's called, and I don't know how to describe it. But have I ever let you down before?"

Beca started speaking, but Harper interrupted. "Don't answer that. Let me rephrase: Have I ever let you down when it _really_ mattered?"

"Harper," Dylan said irritatedly, "If you don't know what it's called or what it looks like, how do you know it's even here?"

"Because. I just. Do." Harper sighed. He turned around to face Dylan and Beka. "Don't you ever just get the feeling like you need something, you don't know what it is and you take a stab in the dark to get it because no matter what you know you're gonna hit something?"

Dylan and Beka exchanged looks.

"Oh, I've seen that look before." Harper said nastily. "It's the 'Harper's finally lost it' look. Well, you know what? Maybe I did. You thought you knew me three years ago, but the was before Seefra. I may have taken too big of risks sometimes, but I always managed to get out of trouble without you guys. And on top of that, I just saw my planet destroyed. Gone, _poof, _blown up by the Nietzscheans. So just back off and let me do my job."

Beka sighed. "Harper, I'm sorry about Earth. I really am. It's just that we've been stuck here for over a month with no contact to anything outside of low orbit of this planet, we're surrounded by junk and you still haven't found what you need to fix the Maru. Can't you just jerry-rig something together so we can limp back to the Andromeda?"

"No, no way." Harper insisted. "This thing I'm looking for, it's irreplaceable. We're stuck here until I find a new one. I would fabricate one except I have no idea what it looks like because the one on the Maru was warped beyond recognition."

Beka was done. She turned around and started walking away. "Okay, well, why don't you find what you need and call me when the Maru is ready to leave."

"Where are you going?" Harper asked. Beka replied, "I'm doing what you wanted me to do. I'm backing off. I am going to find a bar. Maybe by the time I forget where I am it'll be time to leave." She muttered.

"You know what?" Dylan said. "I could use a drink too. And someone has to keep her from cheating everyone out of their money. Harper, if you find whatever it is you're looking for, get it back to the Maru and get it installed yesterday."

"Fine." Harper watched his friends disappear into the crowd. "Alright. Guess I'm working on my own. Again. Not exactly what I meant, but I'll take it." He looked up into the sky. "If there is a Divine being, why didn't you make me Doyle with me on this mission instead of Dylan? Or Trance, how 'bout Trance? Alright," He looked around. "to find the watcha-ma-callit."


	2. Chapter 2: Strangers

**Strangers**

* * *

_Forgotten Planet at the edge of the Triangulum galaxy, C.Y. 10091_

A young woman stood at a fruit stand and rubbed her neck. Her data port was starting to chafe again. Living for this long on a sand planet, sand had started to work it's way underneath of the data port cover. _Stupid sand, it gets everywhere._ She accessed the latest data report, then sat up suddenly.

"You sense someone coming, girl?" An old woman, asked.

The younger woman shook her head. "No. They are already here."

"What are they? Are they real?" The old woman asked.

The girl closed her eyes. "Human. Definitely human. I think they're real, but the computer's good with that. Beyond that, I don't- hold on…" Her eyes snapped open and focused on the old woman. "They have a ship. At least, I think they have a ship."

She took off her apron and handed it to the old woman. "Here. I have to go find them." She started to run off, then turned around and run back to the old woman, giving her a hug. "Thank you, Oma. Thank you for everything." The young woman left again.

"Be careful, my daughter!" The old woman's voice followed the girl. "You have no idea who these strangers are!"

The young woman turned and called across the square. "_Ut proverbium loguitur vetas*_ Oma. A stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet!"

_I hope,_ She thought.

* * *

* "You know what they say…"


	3. Chapter 3: Finder

**Finder**

* * *

_Forgotten Planet at the edge of the Triangulum galaxy, C.Y. 10091_

"What can I get you?" The bartender asked.

"Whatever my engineer looking for so that we leave this tourist trap," Beka replied. "And something with alcohol."

"Same here." Dylan sat near Beka at the bar.

"Two beers, coming up." The bartender placed two mugs in front of them and left to tend to other customers.

"Why'd you follow me?" Beka growled at him. "I don't need you to protect me. I got enough of that from Rhade."

"I didn't follow you to protect you," Dylan assured her.

"You really know how to make a girl feel special, don't you Dylan?" Beka replied snidely.

"I followed you to protect anyone who gets in your way. Is there something you want to talk about?" Dylan asked.

Beka took a deep swig of her beer. "What makes you think I have something to say?"

"You mean other than the fact that you left Harper at a bazaar with the a pocketful of cash?" Dylan suggested. "We'll be extremely lucky if he has enough left over to fix the Maru."

"That wasn't very smart of us, was it?" She agreed.

"What's this 'us' business?" He retorted. "He's _your _engineer."

"Yeah, when it's convenient for you," She shot back.

Dylan waited. "Well?" He prompted. "Let's have it."

Beka sighed. "I've lived on the Maru for almost my entire life, Dylan. I've flown her since I could walk. I should be able to fix anything on that ship. Now because I don't know _my_ ship, _my_ Maru, as well as I thought I did, we're stranded here playing repair roulette with an engineer on a caffeine withdrawal."

The bartender came back. "There's someone who can help with that."

"You know where to find the part we need or Harper's Sparky cola?" Beka asked, taking another drink.

"I don't know what Sparky cola is, but there's a young woman."

"There always is," Dylan said.

"She came here about a year and a half ago." The bartender continued. "She says her name is Lois Kent. She doesn't say much about her past, but she can find just about anything."

"And where can we find Miss Kent?" Dylan asked.

"She works at the fruit stand in Tellus square. But you don't need to go there to find her."

"And why not?"

The bartender smiled at them. "She can find anything, remember? She will know you're looking for something. _She_ will find _you_. All you need do is wait."

* * *

True to his word, about twenty minutes later, a woman walked through the door of the bar. She looked around briefly, then zeroed in Dylan and Beka.

"Dylan, I think she's here." Beka informed him.

Years of living on and around criminal hot spots, Beka had developed an eye for profiling people. Beka assessed her. _Short, slender build, long blonde hair with red streaks. Wearing native clothes but definitely not native. No _visible_ weapons._

He turned around to talk to her, but she beat him to it. "You're new." She stated in a cool, business like tone.

He was taken off guard, but he tried to hide it. "Yeah. I'm Dylan Hunt, this is Beka Valentine. We were told you can find anything."

She smiled mysteriously and flipped her hair out of her face, and Beka spotted a data port on her neck. "Just about." She shook their hands. "I'm Lois Kent, but I'm sure you already knew that. What are you looking for?"

"Shouldn't you already know?" Beka asked skeptically.

"I just find things. I'm not telepathic," Lois said.

"We don't know." Dylan said simply.

"You don't know what you're looking for." Lois stated incredulously.

"Correct."

Lois looked at Dylan, then at Beka. "Neither of you know what it is you need to fix your ship." It was more of a statement than a question. "Are you unfamiliar with the systems ?"

Beka took offence at this. "I'm not 'unfamiliar' with anything about that ship. I know that ship like the back of my own hand. I could probably write a user's manual for that ship from memory. For your information-"

"Heh, you'll have to excuse my friend," Dylan interrupted Beka's rant. "It's, uh, been a long five weeks."

Lois nodded. "I know what you mean. _Tempus edax rerum__*._ Here more than most. Does anyone _else_ know what you need?"

Dylan nodded. "Yeah. Our engineer, except he says he can't tell us."

"Can't, or won't?" Beka muttered, frustrated.

"I can find him." Lois suggested. "At least it would give me somewhere to start. Can you give me a description of him?"

Beka offered the description. "Short, light hair, sorta sticks out all over the place, data port and when he sees you, he'll probably make a poor attempt at flirting with you. Something along the lines of complimenting and insulting you at the same time."

Lois smirked. "Good to know. We'll talk payment after I find whatever it is you need. And I assume this engineer has a name?"

"Seamus Harper," Beka supplied. "Usually just goes by Harper, though."

Lois drew a breath. "Seamus _Zelazny_ Harper?" She asked.

Dylan was surprised. "You know him?"

Lois hesitated. "I, uh, I used to. But that was in another life." She hesitated again. "I'll, uh, contact you, when I find something."

"That was… strange." Dylan said after she left.

"Yeah, to say the least. Did you recognize her?"

"No. Must have been before he came on the Andromeda."

"Before the Maru even. I've never seen or heard of her before. It's gotta be someone he knows from Earth. And what was that, tempus edex stuff?"

The bartender returned. "It's Latin. She does that. If your friend's name is Harper, though, you need to go find him before she does."

"Why do you say that?" Dylan asked.

"Like I said, she doesn't say much about her past. But after a couple of beers, sometimes she does. She mostly talks about this guy she knew from Earth called Harper who lied to her and how much she's gonna kill him the next time she sees him."

"What a surprise." Beka said sarcastically. "What about?"

"I don't know. All I know is that when she start talking about him, the boys and I make bets on how many times she calls him a liar. I'll warn you again; you need to find your friend before she does. Unless he's still of use to you dead."

"We gotta find Harper." Dylan said. They got up to leave.

"Hey, what about your bill?" The bartender yelled after them.

"Put it on Lois's tab. If she going to kill our friend, the least she can do is pay for our drinks."

* * *

* "Time, devourer of all things."


	4. Chapter 4: Died

**Died**

* * *

"Harper!" The com crackled. "Harper, where are you?"

"I'm still looking, boss."

"Harper, we need to regroup. Where are you?"

"I don't know. I can't see any signs. What's going on, boss?"

"Someone's looking for you. A woman-"

"Finally, a woman who can recognize the greatness that is Seamus Zelazny Harper."

"Harper, will you listen to me?" Dylan yelled over the com. "She-" A passerby knocked Harper's com out of his hands to the ground, breaking it.

"Hey, what was that for?" He moved to pick it up, but the cloaked stranger shot it to pieces. Harper jumped back and faced the hooded stranger. "Hey! I needed that. My friends were trying to tell me something."

The woman smiled darkly from under the hooded cloak. "I know."

Harper was about to say something else, but the stranger's fist caught him in the jaw, and he collapsed, unconscious.

"Hm. I thought you'd have outgrown that glass jaw."

* * *

"Harper? Harper!" Dylan yelled into the com. "Crap. We lost him."

"Do you think she already got to him?"

"If she did she is very fast."

"I wish Trance was here." Beka looked around. "I said, I wish Trance was here." She said a little louder. She waited. "I was kinda hoping she would just magically appear. Looks like we're alone on this one. Come on. Let's go this way."

"Let's split up," He suggested. "You go that way, I'll go this way. He can't be too far."

* * *

_Ow._ was Harper's first thought. _What hit me?_ He tried to remember. _A girl. I was dropped… by a girl. This is embarrassing._ He checked to see if he still had the money.

"This wasn't a robbery, Harper."

Harper scrambled to his feet and went to draw his weapon, but found it missing.

"Looking for this?" The woman held it up for him to see. "Sorry about attacking you. It's just kinda hard to trust people after your planet's been blown up." She tossed the gun back to him.

He caught it midair and holstered the weapon. "I know what you mean. I lost my planet not so long ago."

The stranger was silent for a moment. "It-it was the same planet." The words came out in a mangled, choked half-whisper. Then she turned on her heel and disappeared into the street.

"Harper!" _Dylan and Beka!_ He'd forgotten they were looking for him. "I'm fine, I'm fine." He assured Dylan. "I just met a very strange woman. But she didn't knock me out or anything." He added quickly.

"Yeah. We know. Her name is Lois Kent. The bartender said that she knew you."

Harper thought. "No, I think I would have remembered meeting the wife of Superman." He looked at Dylan's incomprehensive face. "Y'know, Superman is Clark Kent, he marries Lois Lane, technically making her Lois Kent?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Harper." Dylan replied.

Harper scoffed. "No classical education whatsoever."

Dylan dismissed Harper's comment. "Anyway, this Lois Kent. She claims you lied to her. She's from-"

"-Earth." Harper interrupted. "She's from Earth and she called me Lyre, L-Y-R-E, not L-I-A-R. A lyre is a Greek harp and this is all starting to make sense." He went in the direction that Lois had. "Don't follow me!"

"Harper!" Dylan shouted after him. "He's going to get himself killed. Beka," he said into his com. "Harper's headed your way."

* * *

Harper was grabbed mid-stride and yanked through a wall. He fell and dropped the gun, and it skittered across the floor. He sat up and watched Dylan and Beka pass by without seeing him. The hooded woman stood near the entrance.

"Holographic architecture." The hooded figure said. "Comes in handy when you want to hide in plain sight." She removed her hood to get a better look at her old friend.

"Yeah." Harper agreed. "Nice data port." He commented.

"You too." She commented. Then they were silent for a long time.

"How long has it been, Zal?" Harper finally asked.

"Twenty two years since I left Boston. Seven since you left Earth. Only two since I did, the second time. Or maybe you're talking about since you broke your promise."

"I was ten years old! I didn't know what I was promising!"

"Yes, you did. Or you wouldn't have come back two years ago." She snapped. "And you didn't even try to find me like you promised to if you couldn't free the Earth. You promised-!"

"I thought you were dead!" He yelled back.

She stared back at him in stunned silence. He looked away from her and took a deep breath. "Your mom came back the next day in really bad shape. Alone. She told us that the Nietzscheans attacked the convoy you guys were with. She couldn't even talk about you. She died about a week later. No one ever found out what happened to you. We lived on _Earth_. You know how it was. It wasn't that hard to assume the worst."

He looked back up at her. She was crying, and her face looked hateful. "My mother. She was the reason I 'died_.' " _


	5. Chapter 5: Promises, promises

**Promises, promises**

* * *

Earth, Boston, C.Y. 10069

"_Zally!" A young boy called down the corridor. "Zally! Where are you?"_

_He heard someone crying. A girl._

"_Zal?" He climbed into the blanket tent where he and the 'rebels' met to plan their 'attacks' on the Nietzscheans. "Zal, are you in there?" He found his friend hugging her knees and sobbing quietly. "Zal!" _

"_Seamus?" She blinked though her tears and looked up. He kneeled next to her and hugged her. "Zally, what's wrong?"_

_Zally hugged him back. "I'm sorry," she sobbed._

"_Sorry for what? Did you tell my mom about the shrillers?" He asked worriedly._

"_No. they're only prototypes anyway. You know that," she sniffed. "We're moving." _

_Seamus closed his eyes, and a tear slid out. "Where?" He asked, trying really, really hard not to cry._

"_I don't know. Somewhere closer to my mom's family, I guess." She sniffed again and wiped the tears away. "We're leaving tomorrow."_

"_No!" Seamus shouted. "You can't leave! Not tomorrow! Not ever."_

"_Mom says we have to," Zally said._

"_I don't care! Your Mom can leave for her family, and you can stay with us Harpers. Mom and Dad love ya, no way they'd object to you staying with us."_

"_I can't," Zally whispered. Seamus could feel her shaking. "She said she's doing this because of me. For me. To save me."_

_Seamus choked back tears. "Just promise me one thing, okay?"_

"_Anything," she agreed._

"_If the dragans get ya, give them a message for me. You know, the rude one we're not supposed to repeat."_

_She laughed a little. "Okay. I want you to promise me something too." _

"_Yeah?"_

"_If you ever get off this planet like we're always planning to, free the earth. You'll find way to do it, I know you will. If you can find a way to mess with the Nietzscheans and live, you can find a way to save us."_

"_Zalastrina Pearl Kent, I promise you. I'll find a way to free the Earth. And if I can't, the least I can do is save you."_

"_You'd better. Or else I will find you and make you pay, Lyre."_


	6. Chapter 6: Johannesburg

**_Johannesburg_**

* * *

"Argh!" Beka was infuriated. "How hard could it be to find one egomaniacal engineer?"

"Let's go back to the bar. Someone there has to know where to find Lois." Dylan said.

"Didn't that bartender say that she worked in a place called Tellus Square?" Beka asked. "That's as good a place as any to start."

"I think we passed it a few streets back," Dylan said. "Tellus. That's Greek, isn't it?"

"Maybe. Why?"

"I think she's a fan of dead languages. Dead Earth languages."

Beka agreed. "Yeah, the bartender said that she said stuff like that. Is that important?"

Dylan shrugged. "Probably not. Just interesting."

* * *

"Then she left. No goodbyes. Nothing. Like she wasn't even my mother. Like she was stranger. Then they did some tests on my blood. There was something different about it I think, because they took me to a Nietzschean satellite orbiting the Earth. They left me with a family without really telling me anything. Not exactly a slave, but not one of their own either. I still had to fend for myself but no one tried to kill me outright."

"How'd you get back to Earth?" Harper asked.

Zally smiled at him sadly. "It's kinda a long story."

"Is there anything you can tell me?"

She hesitated. "I need your help." She finally said.

"You need _my_ help?"

"Yes, I know. I'm not happy about it either."

Harper sneered. "Ha, ha. What I meant was, do you need my help, or do you just need help?"

"I'd take anyone's help. But I'm sorta glad it's you."

"Oh, yeah? Why?"

"Because when were done, I can let you in on a secret that you will be very interested to know about. Which is grown-up speak for, _'I've got a secret and I'm not tell-ing.'_ " She finished in a sing-song voice.

* * *

_Johannesburg, Earth, C.Y. 10089_

"_Zal!" One of the guards came rushing in. "Zal! It's started! The rebellion! There's a rebellion in Boston! Just like you said! And there's word of a Commonwealth ship on the way."_

"_Boston?" Zally repeated incredulously. "That's gotta be Seamus! He's come back, just like he promised." _

_She stood on top the crates. "Hey! There's a rebellion, right across the world, starting in Boston, Mass., Bunker Hill, and it's time to reclaim Johannesburg! It's time- To reclaim- The Earth!" A cry went up, the rebels out, and Zally went home, to Boston._

* * *

"_Seamus!" Zally called out into the corridors. It'd been easy enough to sneak in with so many people forced underground. She expected to find some dead and wounded, but not this many. And she recognized only one of them. "Brendon!" She ran to his side and took his hand. _

_"Zally?" He said weakly. "Zalastrina Kent, after all this time later, and you choose now to come back?"_

_She smiled at him. "Yeah, well, rebellion starts in my hometown and I'm supposed to stay away? Not a chance. Where'd all these people come from? I thought Boston was almost a ghost town."_

"_It is," Brendon said hoarsely. "This _is_ Boston. The whole city. The ubers forced us all down here."_

Aw, crap._ She thought._ We got pasted. "_Any word from Seamus?" She asked._

_Brendon swallowed. "Uh, yeah. He's gone. He left, he couldn't stay."_

_Zally closed her eyes._ Lyre. You promised. _"Brendon, he maybe gone, but I still have an ace up my sleeve. I just hope my friend is more reliable than Harper."_


	7. Chapter 7: Reality?

**Reality?**

* * *

"And you have no idea where to find her?" Beka asked.

The old woman shook her head. "Sometimes she stays at my home. Sometimes she stays somewhere else. I do not know where. She never tells me ahead of time. She comes here to work when she needs money. She left this morning in search of a ship. She will not be back for a few days."

"Thank you for your time, Oma. You've been very helpful." Dylan said.

The old woman smiled at him. "Thank you, but I'm afraid that I've been very unhelpful. I can see it in your face. It cannot be helped. Good day to you." The old woman turned her attention to her fruit stand.

"What now?" Beka asked. "This was our only lead."

"We'll find him, Beka. We'll find him because we still need him to fix the Maru."

"What if he doesn't want to be found, Dylan? I mean, think about what we've learned about this girl;" Beka counted on her fingers, "Firstly, she's a girl. Second, she's from Earth. Third, she and Harper have a history, of sorts. Fourth, she got Harper to follow her like a…a…"

"Like Harper after a girl?" Dylan supplied.

"Exactly!" Beka exclaimed. "Harper doesn't exactly have the best track record with women. I mean, name one woman he's met in the last five years who's shown any kind of interest in him who hasn't tried to kill him."

"You have a point, Beka. But you missed something. She's looking for a ship. The-"

"-Maru." Beka finished. "She's going after the Maru!"

* * *

"So how long you been here? On this planet, I mean." Harper asked.

Zally smiled. "Well, this isn't exactly a planet."

"What is it, then?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Do you wanna see?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?" She asked.

"Of course I'm sure." _I think._

"Alright then." And then she disappeared.

Harper jumped up and moved to where she was standing just one second ago. "Zal? Zally, where you go?" Then Harper felt as if he was being extracted from a computer mainframe. _I don't remember jacking into a computer,_ he thought.


	8. Chapter 8: Satellite

**Satellite**

* * *

He opened his eyes. The room was dimly lit. He felt cold, like he'd been frozen. The air tasted stale and metallic. He shivered.

"You can get out of there, Harper. Unless you _want_ to be frozen again."

Harper stepped out of the pod and almost collapsed. He would have if Zally hadn't caught him.

"Easy, easy," She said. "The pods, they can mess up your head. Takes a while to acclimate to gravity again."

"Where-where are we?" Harper asked, looking around.

"We're on a satellite."

"But we were on a planet."

"No, you were on the satellite the entire time. Welcome to the Ark."

"The Ark. Nice name. Like the myth," he commented. "Why is it so dark?"

"Because it's almost out of power. All available power is going to the cryogenic pods, keeping these people alive. The light are being powered by what little I could get from your ship."

"You mean the Maru?" Harper asked as he remembered. "Dylan and Beka! Where are they? Are they okay?"

"They're fine. I found them. Dylan is down three levels from here and Beka's in the next section on this level. But there's not enough power to wake them up. There was barely enough power to get you out."

"We can tap into the emergency power on the Maru." Harper said. "Where is it?"

"This way. Do you think you can walk?" Zally asked.

"Let's find out." Zally pulled away from him and he stood on his own. Satisfied that he could walk, Zally lead him through corridors to the Maru.

"You never answered my question," Harper reminded her.

"What was your question again?"

"How long have you been here?"

"In cyberspace, I've been here about a year and a half. In the real time, it's been more like ten months."

"Why the difference in times?"

"I don't know exactly. I think there's something wrong with the internal clock. There was a lot of damage to this place before I got here. I got some systems working, but there are still a lot of glitches. I had to cut corners. This thing has been floating around space for something like a hundred years."

"That's a lot of time in deep space."

"No joke. Anyway, from what I've been able to glean from the ship's records, their planet was reaching a very critical point. It was getting too hot for people to live anywhere on the planet, so they built this massive satellite to reach another planet that was capable of supporting life. Only problem was that once they got to their new home world, they found out that they had made a major miscalculation and the planet had been destroyed by solar radiation. The planet had boiled from the inside out and cracked like an egg. So, out of power, floating, dead in space, what to do?"

"They put the satellite into orbit around the sun, waiting for somebody to find them and help them." Harper finished.

"Exactly. The only problem was that they had picked a planet that had no easy access to a slip point around here so that they couldn't be discovered by the Nietzscheans. They had almost zero hope of being found."

"You found this place," Harper commented.

"By accident." Zally admitted. "I was in a crippled nietzschean slip fighter-"

"A Nietzschean slip fighter?" Harper interrupted. "What were you doing in a Nietzschean slip fighter?"

"That's another story for another time. Anyway, slip stream spit me out here. I came to this satellite hoping to use it as scrap to fix my ship. I ended up scrapping the slip fighter to fix this place."

"A Wayist friend of mine used to say something like that was 'One of the universe's little jokes, at our expense.' "

Zally laughed quietly. "Sound's like a friend of mine. I don't know if you'd like him, he's a bit… different."

"Yeah, that describes him to a T."

Harper fell silent. Zally looked over at him. "Are you okay?" She asked. "What's going on in the beautiful mind of Seamus Harper?"

"I don't know. Just that… people change."

"Not you, Seamus. When I saw you, heard you talking to your friends on the com… You haven't changed a bit. But now, talking to me, here and now… something's on your mind. I can always tell. Other than 'people change', I mean."

"It's been, what, twenty-some years since you saw me? It's been even longer for me. Twenty-five to be almost exact. And now you're here. Alive, after all this time. I just… it's a lot to take in, I guess."

"Yeah." Zally agreed. "Well, enough about me. What about you? What amazing historically significant things have you accomplished since in those, what was it, twenty-five years?"

"I'll give you the cliff notes. Escaped earth by getting a job on a cargo ship, the Eureka Maru, captained by the charming and attractive Beka Valentine. I started working on the Maru, where I didn't do anything really important because we were to busy staying out of people's cross-hairs and looking for the big score, the fast buck. Fast forward three years, we get a job to haul an old commonwealth starship, the glorious Andromeda Ascendant, out of a black hole. Found Dylan, the captain of the original crew. Beka and I, and the rest of the Maru crew, all joined the Andromeda team. Oh, and a bounty hunter who'd been screwed by our mutual employer and left to die in the black hole. Since then, I've invented time travel, a tesseract generator to remove the Magog larvae I'd been infested with, built two, no, make that three of the most human-like androids I've ever seen, and I've probably rebuild half the Andromeda by hand by now."

"Wow. _That's _the short version?"

"Yep. Not bad, if I do say so my self."

"Well, nice to see you survived with ego intact. I only have one question at the moment."

"Yeah?"

"You said that you haven't seen me for twenty-five years. It's only been twenty-two for me. Where, or when I suppose, did you spend those three years?"

"If you really want to know, I spent those three particular years in a pleasant little hellhole of a pocket universe fondly known as the Seefra system, made up of Methis one and two, the resident twin suns, and nine planets, each identical to the others, labeled Seefras one through nine. In real time, it had been only about four days. Then I was headed back to earth and it…" He trailed off.

"It was gone?" Zally asked.

"No, actually. I…I was there when it… I watched it happened."

"You were- you were there? I just can't imagine. To have watched it happen, I mean, that…It was bad enough that the ubers took everyone and made us mine for the materials used to blow up earth, but, to have been there…I'm so sorry, Seamus."

Harper took Zally by the shoulder and turned her around. They stopped in the middle of the corridor. "Wait a minute. What do you mean by everyone?"

"After the rebellion, the Nietzscheans gathered everyone up and quashed the rebellion by killing the ones that they could identify as the leaders, and their families. A, um, friend, a Nietzschean, did what he could to make sure I was sent to a mining colony. Well, me and the rest of the Bostonians he could save."

"What about Brendon? Did he make it out?" Harper asked urgently.

"He made it, Seamus. Only barely, but he made it."

Seamus sighed with relief. He thought about her words. "You have a Nietzschean friend? You have a odd taste in friends."

"Yeah, especially since I count you as a friend."

"Ha, ha. But he sent you to a mining camp. Some friend he turned out to be."

"It was better than one of their "resettlement centers", Harper. Before the ubers took us all off world, though, they took us on one last march through Boston. It was ghost town, Harper. Whoever had been left had been killed."

"How many made it?"

"Not many of us from Boston. But there were at least a couple thousand on the transport to the mining colony, and then three more with at least a thousand. All from earth. About five thousand there, who knows how many elsewhere."

They walked a little more before they came to the airlock.

"So this is the fabled Maru I've been told of." Zally said.

"Yup. The Eureka Maru. My ticket off earth and our one-and-only ticket outta here." Harper moved to open the airlock. "Now let's get Dylan and Beka."


	9. Chapter 9: Extremely Very Not Good

**Extremely Very Not Good**

* * *

Dylan and Beka had searched the entire Maru, but with no sign of Harper or Lois.

"Okay, so, either she's not after the Maru, they haven't gotten here yet, or she needs Harper to fix a ship she already has." Beka said.

"Or none of the above." Dylan said.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't you just feel like something is off?"

Beka looked at him strangely. "No." _He could be sensing something I don't because he's Paradine._ "Do you?" Beka moved to the cockpit looking for _something_.

"Just a little, yeah. Like my sense of time is off. The last time I felt this way was in Seefra. I didn't know what it meant then, but now-" Dylan's sentence was cut off abruptly.

"Now what?" Beka asked. "I really don't like what you're saying, Dylan. Anything that reminds you of Seefra cannot be good." She walked back into the room she'd left Dylan in, but it was empty. "Dylan?"

Then the world went dark. _What-?_

* * *

Her eyes snapped open. _Cold. Tight space. _She thought._ Get. Out. _She stepped out of the cryo-pod, but moved to quickly, and hit the ground. Hard.

"You alright?" A girl asked, concerned. Beka looked up. Blond with red streaks. Glint of sliver.

Lois.

Beka tried to reach for her weapon, but the girl stopped. "I don't think it'd be a good idea to try and aim at something until your head's a little clearer."

"What have you done with Harper?" Beka demanded.

"Right here, boss." Harper's voice replied.

"That was fast." Lois said, looking up at him. "Are you a heavy-worlder?"

Dylan's voice. "My mother was."

"I am sooo jealous."

"Okay, great. Now that we're all finished comparing genealogies, can someone help me up please?" Beka asked. After she was standing, she asked, "Who are you and why are you after my ship?"

"What?"

"That old woman, Oma, told us that you were looking for a ship. The Eureka Maru is the only ship on this planet."

"In this solar cluster, actually," Dylan said.

It was Beka's turn to be taken aback. "What?"

Zally nodded. "He's right. And we're not on a planet. This is a satellite. And it's not actually the ship I need. It's power."

"Why? What for?"

"This satellite is slip-capable, except we're running on emergency power. Harper and I had to leech power from the Maru to wake you and Dylan up. In fact your ship is the only thing powering the life suppo-" Shrieking alarms cut her off.

"What are those alarms for?" Dylan yelled.

Zally shrugged. "I don't know. They've never done that before. Come on," She pointed. "Command's this way."

When they reached command, Zally jacked the computer with her data port. The alarms shut off.

"That's better." Harper said. "What was the problem?"

"Is. What is the problem. I only silenced the alarms." She brought up the deep space radar on the main screen.

"It's a little fuzzy. Is there anyway you can enhance the image?" Dylan asked.

Zally shook her head. "That's as good as it gets. I could reroute the feed to the Maru, see if that would clean it up a little bit, but that would take too long. It's probably just an asteroid. And anyway, we'll be able to see it until we get a little… Aw, man," She grimaced. "This is extremely very not good."

"What is it?" Beka asked.

"Whatever it is, it's headed straight for us. And I don't think it's going to stop. Harper, what have you got?"

Harper jumped. "What makes you think I've got anything?" He asked defensively.

She smiled sweetly at him. "Because if I were you, I would have hacked the system and found something by now. Spill."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Beka interrupted. "First of all, it's my ship and my engineer we're talking about. You can't use Harper or my Maru with out my permission."

"Hey!" Harper exclaimed.

Beka carried on as if she didn't hear him. "Before we help you, you need to explain the situation as best you can in a short period of time. Starting now."

Zally shifted impatiently. "Alright. I'll give you the cliff notes."

"Hey, that was my line!" Harper objected.

"I call it recycling. Anyway, over a hundred years ago, these people left their planet because it got too hot to support life. They came here, expecting to find a planet capable of supporting life. What they found was an asteroid belt. They used up all their power on the journey here, so they put themselves into an eccentric orbit around the sun, hoping that each time they passed the sun, they could scoop up enough hydrogen to power this thing. Except they got pummeled by a bunch asteroids and that damaged a bunch of systems. About ten months ago, I found this place after somebody fired their slipstream core at me. I docked with the ship looking for spare parts to fix my slip fighter, which I then turned into scrap to fix this place. You gotta _love_ irony." She added facetiously.

"I remember seeing the skeleton of a slip fighter docked with this satellite." Beka said. "Hold on, how do I remember that?"

"It's the pods." Zally said. "They can sometime cause people to forget up to four hours of time before they were put into the pods. It's only temporary. The more time that passes, the more you will remember."

"Speaking of the pods, how'd we get in there?" Dylan asked. "I mean, I don't think we climbed in there voluntarily."

"Ah. Okay, that one is kinda my fault." She admitted guiltily. "You see, There were some androids on board keep the basic functions running and I programmed a couple of them to put anyone who got out of the pods, back into the pods. I guess they didn't know you weren't the natives."

"You're basically keeping these people prisoner?" Dylan asked. He was starting to get a little mad.

"For their own safety!" Zally defended. "It takes a lot of power to run the life support. As long as these people show vital signs, the life support stays on, and it drains the power. That kills people."

"How could it-"

"The more power that goes to life support, the less power is going to the cryo-pods. The last time I let someone walk around will-nilly all over the satellite, eight people died. And I am _not _losing _any_body else."

"There have got to be hundreds of pods." Beka commented.

"Thousands." Zally confirmed. "The entire populace of a dying planet. Fifty thousand at the start. Over the last hundred years, they lost about half the population. That was before the program that stored their consciousnesses. Twenty five thousand, mostly due to power loss and computer error. I did what I could but it's not enough."

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Harper asked. "Back when we were in the program?"

"Sometimes the computer takes memories from our consciousnesses and spins them into a new being. Here, then gone, like ephemera." She shrugged. "I didn't think you were real. Until they told me your name. I even wasn't sure it really was you until I came out and checked the cryogenic records." Zally looked at the three of then plaintively. "Now, will you help me?"

The three exchanged looks. A silent agreement was reached. "We'll help." Dylan agreed.

Zally grinned. "Good. Now, Seamus, what have you got?"

"I went over the logs. There are about fifteen thousand active pods-"

"How many?" Zally asked sharply.

"Fifteen thousand." Harper realization dawned on him. "But you said-"

"Just under twenty five thousand." Zally confirmed. Her face was ashen. "That was about a month ago, when we were passing close enough to the sun's corona to do some maintenance. There were-ten thousand… All dead."

"What needs to be done?" Dylan asked.

Zally snapped out of her state of shock. "Seamus, you got a chance to check out the blue prints for this place?"

"Yeah. It looks like half the satellite is pressurized. That's a lot of unused space, that's what eating up a lot of your power."

"I tried over-riding the safety protocols but it keeps saying that there is something living down there and locking me out."

"Okay, so we'll have to do that manually from the engine room. No biggie. Another thing eating your power is something on the mainframe. It's hidden, but it's there. If we shut that down, that'll give us a whole lot of power."

"It still may not be enough," Zally said.

"I just might be," Dylan said.

"I hate optimism," Zally muttered.

"Yeah, well, pessimism isn't a survival trait," Dylan said. _I haven't said _that_ in a long time. _He thought. "Where's the engine room?"


	10. Chapter 10: So We Run

**And so we run**

* * *

"Did she say left or right?" Beka asked.

He check the diagram on the flexi Zally gave him. "Left. No… right."

"Well? Which is it?" Beka prompted.

"Right, I definitely meant right." Dylan stated. They turned right and walked down the corridor.

"Don't you think it's a little weird that we find an old friend of Harper's way out here in the middle of nowhere?" Beca asked.

Dylan shrugged. "I don't think it's a coincidence, if that's what you're asking."

"I didn't think so." Beka said. "So, what do you think _is_ going on? What do you think she's up to?"

"Well, maybe it's not her. If she says that slipstream left her here, I'm not inclined to disagree. From what I do remember of our trip, it doesn't sound too different from how we got here."

"Are you saying that you believe that an all-powerful being brought us all here for a reason?" Beka asked skeptically.

He shrugged again. "Or it could just be an avatar of a sun toying with us like on Inaris. Keep your eyes open."

* * *

"Ready when you are." Harper said.

"Oh, I'm always ready." Zally replied.

Harper entered the computer and Zally followed.

"What are we looking for exactly?" Zally asked.

"A hidden file, a big one. It might be locked."

"I though I'd been through every file, trying to find ways to maximize power. I can't believe I missed one."

"Yeah, well, it happens to the best of us. Now, you were telling me about your life after Boston. You were on a Nietzschean satellite?"

"Yeah, no clue why I was there, nothing but the clothes I was wearing. The kids up there, they either ignored me or beat me up. No middle ground. There was this one kid though, a boy. Kinda spoiled. He was the eldest. We were about the same age. We became really close friends. In fact, I would even say best friends. He set me up with a transport to get back to Earth. He warned me that they would be looking for me in Boston, so he sent me to Johannesburg. That was about, 10078-ish."

"You were in Johannesburg? Were you there during the rebellion? 10089?" Harper asked. Zally nodded.

"Yeah. I got people out and fighting for their freedom because of you, Harper. Because you came back to do what you promised when you were ten. I even went to Boston to try and find you. But after you left, things got worse."

"How could things have possibly gotten worse?"

"Like I said before, The Ubers went into slaving-overdrive. They started using everyone who could hold a tool. Most of us were sent off world to mine raw ore."

"Why didn't your friend save you from being a slave, if you guys were so close?"

"He's still Nietzschean. I didn't expect him to risk his life for me in quite such an obvious way. But what _he_ did was more than what you did to save me."

"I thought you were dead!" he reminded her. "Tell me, how was I supposed to save you if you were dead? Why'd you go back to Boston if you hated me so much, anyway?"

"I didn't hate you then. I thought you'd need help retaking Boston. Boston was where it started, Bunker Hill, yeah? I thought that would be where it would end. But by the time I got there, you'd already left, and the rebellion was crushed."

"I had no idea. I'm sorry." He said.

"Yeah. Your sorry. Everyone's sorry." Zally said venomously. "Why did you leave, Seamus? Was it because we were losing?"

"No! Well, maybe a little. It's just that a lot has happened since you die-since we thought you died," he corrected himself. "The Nietzscheans, they came looking for me because of all those stupid stunts we pulled with the shrillers. Mom and Dad, they were protecting me… I was only a few feet away… and then during the rebellion…they came so close to the bunker, and Brendon wanted me to go with him, to fight with him…I couldn't watch anyone else…" A lump formed in his throat and his stomach was in knots. Zally stayed silent.

"You know, after a while you just get tired." Harper said quietly. "Tired of the struggle. Tired of _just_ surviving. Tired of watching the world around you turning to hell over and over again."

"And so we run." Zally added quietly.

"And so we ran." Harper agreed.

* * *

"I think that should do it." Beka said. "Now the only parts of the ship that are pressurized are this on, the one the Maru's on and the three levels between."

"Good." Dylan said. "Let's get back up to command and-" He stopped.

So did Beka. "What is it?" She asked.

"I thought I heard something." They listened, and heard someone moving out in the corridor. Dylan motioned Beka to take up a position on the one side of the door and he took the other. He looked out in to the corridor. Nothing. He motioned Beka to follow him, and he moved down to the end of the corridor, and peeked around the corner. He glanced at Beka, and she read the _Aw, crap. _expression on his face.

She was going to ask what it was, but Dylan put his hand over her mouth and moved back down the corridor towards the engine room. "We need to find a different way to the control room. We still have the schematic for this satellite, right?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah." She pulled it out and gave it to him. "What was it?"

"Magog," he replied. "Just the one but who knows how many more there are."

"I'll bet Harper's girlfriend does."


	11. Chapter 11: 120,000

**120,000**

* * *

"Harper, have you found anything yet?" Zally asked.

"No, but it was here. I swear! It was right here." He was starting to get frustrated.

"Maybe it moved." Zally suggested. "You're right, though, because there is something draining the power, so it's not imaginary."

"Zal, does this place have internal surveillance?"

"I don't know. I never needed to use them. Do you that's what it is?"

"Maybe. If you never used them, you'd never know if they're on. But what I wanted to do is check on Dylan and Beka, see if they-" Harper disconnected from the computer.

"Harper, where you go?" Zally asked. "Seamus?" She exited the computer, and found Dylan and Beka pointing their weapons at her. "Whoa! What's going on?" She looked at Harper. He was rubbing his neck.

_They must have yanked the jack out of his neck, s_he thought. "Seamus, did I miss something?"

"What's going on, you guys?" Harper asked them.

"We were about to ask her the same question." Dylan said.

"What did I do?" Zally asked.

"There are Magog on this satellite." Beka said. "Why are they here?"

"You think I'm working with the Magog?" Zally asked.

"We've seen it happen before." Dylan said.

"Yeah but that was when the Abyss was controlling them," Harper defended. "I can't find them on the scans. Are you sure that there were Magog?"

"Yes. Very, very sure." Dylan said. "Now, start talking."

"Why am I the bad guy?" Zally asked.

"Because you lied to us and imprisoned us here, and you threatened to kill Harper." Beka said, and her blaster whined as she charged it. "Like Dylan said. Start talking."

Zally swallowed nervously. "Well, I can only figure the reason the Magog are here is because there are a lot of people, and they're Magog. I didn't bring them here. On Harper's life, I swear I didn't bring them here."

"Hey!"

"Trust me, if you'd been living my life for the last twenty two years, you'd take it as a complement," she said. "I can only guess, but I think the reason they don't show up on the scans is because these people have never met Magog before."

"What do you mean, they've never met Magog before?" Beka asked. "I've never met anyone who doesn't know what Magog are."

"It's not that they don't know what the Magog are." Zally explained. "It's that they lived their whole lives underground. The Magog never saw any reason to attack so they never found them, so there was no reason to track anything except human life signs. Aside from that, the fact that they were so far from the galactic center that they'd barely even heard of Nietzscheans, they are a very naïve and ill-prepared people. There are no weapons, internal or external. No means with which to defend ourselves with except for the weapons you brought with you."

Beka and Dylan lowered their weapons, but remained wary of the girl. "Do you have anyway of tracking the Magog?" Beka asked.

"I could try internal surveillance," she suggested.

"No good." Harper said. "I just checked. All the cameras feeds are down."

Zally thought. "We could try the motion sensors. Although, I don't even know if they work."

"Well, let's give them a shot." Dylan said. "Turn them on."

"Alright, but we're using power we can't spare." She typed the commands into the computer anyway, and brought up the schematic to see where they were.

"Holy crap, that's a lot of Magog. They're all over the place." Harper said.

"I'm counting thousands." Zally said. "That's- that's at the most one hundred twenty thousand."

"How do you figure that?" Dylan asked.

Zally closed her eyes. "Easy," she said quietly. "Approximately twelve Magog eggs in each body, ten thousand dead-"

"-One hundred twenty thousand." Dylan finished. "Assuming that all those people were infested with Magog and not eaten."

"Please tell me that you shut off the gravity on the other levels." Zally said.

"It's not going to do much good against the Magog. They're made to withstand harsh environments." Harper said.

"No, but it'll slow them down. They're cut off from the others now. And their ships too, hopefully. But now they know that someone's up here. They'll come looking." Zally said. "Have you got anymore questions, or can we go see if there is anyone left to save?"

"What do you mean by 'anyone left?' " Beca asked.

Zally shut off the main displays. "There are, at most, one hundred twenty thousand Magog on this satellite. There are also fifteen thousand humans that we know are still alive. I can only assume that they were left alive for a purpose. Being Magog, I really don't need to say what that purpose is. If there none of them have been infected, great. We unfreeze them. If they are infected, we leave them."

"Very…efficient." Dylan commented.

Zally leveled her eyes at him. "If we unfreeze those infected, we will be condemning them to a slow, painful death. I know I seem cold, captain. But when I see a lot people dying, my Nietzschean upbringing takes over, and that means conservation of time and energy. We save only the ones we can and get the heck outta here. Wouldn't you agree, captain?"

"You know, I really hate it when Nietzschean logic makes sense." Dylan said. "Alright, fine. If you're so smart, how do we deal with the Magog already onboard?"

"We avoid them until we can get to slipstream." She replied calmly.

"Slipstream?" Harper asked. "Your plan is still to go to slipstream?"

Zally hesitated. "Yes."

"Why?" Beka asked.

"Do you have a better plan?" Zally asked.

Beka volunteered. "Yeah, I do. We save the people we can and blast any Magog we see."

"Great plan." Zally said mockingly. "Why don't we plan a Magog family picnic while we're at it. We'll stick to my plan. Let's get going." Zally stepped away from the controls. "When you check the cryo-pods, there are controls just to the left. Look for ones that haven't been opened in a while, say about, a month. If they have been opened, nobody could have opened them but the Magog. Don't open those ones because we may not have enough power to refreeze them. I suggest Harper and I stay here looking for ways to maximize power and track the Magog while you and Beka look for survivors."

"Great plan," Dylan said. "Except you and Beka go look for survivors. Harper and I will stay here at command."

Zally looked unhappy but agreed anyways. "I'm ready to go when you are, Beka."

Beka nodded. "Let's go."


	12. Chapter 12: 200 Years

**200 years**

* * *

"This one's been opened." Zally said, and checked the next one. "This one too. Dammit."

"I think they've all been opened." Beka said. "We should move onto the next section."

"Not until we've checked all of these." Zally insisted.

Beka scoffed. "You're the one who said 'conservation of time and energy.' This doesn't look like conservation to me."

"Beka, I know a lot of these people. If I can save just one, it would be a victory but I want to save everyone I can."

"Fine. Checking." Beka said. After a few minutes she asked, "How long have you been here?"

"About ten months. You've been here for two or three weeks." Zally informed her.

"Two or three?" Beka asked. "It felt like over a month."

"That's because of a glitch in the computer matrix. The internal clock is off. I was on the virtual planet for a year and a half."

"That's a long time." _That also explains why Dylan felt like something was off._ Beca thought._ It was his Paradine half sensing the time differential. _

"It's even longer for these people." Zally tapped on the glass of the cryo-pods. "They've been knocking around space for over a hundred years. They've been in the program for almost two hundred years."

"Two hundred years? I'm surprised they haven't gone insane."

Zally shrugged. "It's not like they were missing anything."

* * *

"Mister Harper, care to explain your friend?" Dylan asked.

"What's there to explain?" Harper asked. "She's a kid I knew from earth. She and her mom left. The next day her mom came back, and all but told us Zal was dead. But she's not, she's here, alive and kinda hot."

Dylan rolled his eyes. "You are completely predictable, Mister Harper."

"I try, boss."

"She said 'Nietzschean upbringing'. What did she mean by that?" Dylan asked.

"She said that the Nietzscheans did some tests with her DNA and then handed her over to a Nietzschean family for them to raise."

"When was this?"

"Shortly after she was taken, when she was about eleven."

"So she's spent her whole life around Nietzscheans?"

"Until she came back to earth, yeah. A friend of hers, another Nietzschean, helped her get back to Earth in C.Y. 10078."

"Which pride was this?"

"Drago-Kazov, I think. Why you so curious, boss?"

"Harper, how do you know we can trust her?"

"Because I know her, boss."

"You used to know her, Harper, and you haven't seen her since you left Earth."

"Actually, I haven't seen her since she was eleven." Harper glanced over at the frustrated Dylan. "But you didn't need to know that." Harper added quickly.

"I don't trust her." Dylan said forcefully. "And the fact that you _do_ makes me worry."

"That's not fair, boss"

"If you can name one woman that you've fallen hopelessly in love with who hasn't tried to kill you, I'll take it back."

"Not Zally." Harper insisted. "Zalastrina is the only girl we ever trusted enough to include in our plans when we were kids. She was smart, she was fast, and she could beat the crap out of any of the other kids that threatened us. Well, as long as they were regular human kids and not ubers. You can trust her, boss."

"I don't really think we have a choice, Harper."

* * *

"Beka, I got one!" Zally said excitedly. She started unfreezing the body.

Beka turned back from checking the surrounding corridors for Magog. "Anyone you know?" She asked.

"Yes I do. Ahva Victoria. She worked at one of the orchards that we bought from." The pressure seal hissed as the door opened. The girl opened her eyes and leaned forward to step out of the cryo-pod. Zally helped her out.

"Have we arrived?" Ahva asked.

Zally shook her head. "I'm afraid not. The situation has changed. This is Beka." Zally pointed at her.

"Hello," Ahva murmured.

"Ahva, do you know how to work the cryo-pod controls?" Zally asked.

Ahva nodded.

"Okay, good. Look for pods that haven't been opened in over a month. Tell me if you find any. And stay close. There are Magog on this satellite."

Ahva started looking. Beka turned to Zally. "I'll keep checking the corridors ahead. The next three are clear, for now. Just work fast."

Zally was about to say something, when she heard something behind them. Beka heard it too. She moved down to the end of the corridor, gun drawn. Zally followed and looked around the corner with Beka.

"Beka, are you seeing this?" Zally asked.

Beka nodded. "This is just weird."

"What do we do now?" Zally whispered.

"We get outta here. Like, now."


	13. Chapter 13: Moira

**Moira**

* * *

"Dylan, we've got a problem." Beka informed him over the com.

"What is it now?"

"The Magog we're dealing with are the future version. They have a clear chain of command and as far as we can tell, they're sweeping the satellite, looking for us."

"Beka, I want you and Zally to fall back to command."

Zally took the com. "We can't. We've been cut off. We'll fall back to the Maru."

"Alright. Stay there until we say the halls are clear. Dylan out."

Beka snatched her com back from Zally. "How do you even know how to get anywhere? It's like a maze."

"It was designed that way." Ahva said softly. "We were a very creative and artistic people. This satellite, like everything else we do, reflects that."

"Maybe the next time your people build a spacecraft, you keep in mind efficiency over innovation." Beka said. "Now let's get back to the Maru."

* * *

"Ha! I found it!" Harper yelled. "Trust in the Harper. The Harper is good."

"Keep your voice down Harper!" Dylan hissed. "What did you find?"

Harper lowered his voice. "Sorry, boss. I found that file that's draining power. But it's got loads of encryptions. It's going to take me a while to- Whoa." He frowned. "That's not possible. Is that possible?"

"What is it?" Dylan asked.

"The file, it's opening. By itself. And it's asserting itself into the computer's mainframe. But that shouldn't be possible unless-"

"Unless-?" Dylan prompted.

A female voice answered him. "I am Moira."

* * *

"Maru, are you receiving this?" A calm, female voice came over the com system as the trio entered the ship. "Eureka Maru, please respond."

Beka rushed to the front of the ship and acknowledged the hail. Zally and Ahva followed her. "This is the Maru, cut your coms. We're in Magog space. You're making yourself a target. I repeat, cut your coms."

"This is shielded transmission. The Magog cannot detect it." The woman responded. "Is Lois there?"

Zally frowned and looked over at Beka. She shook her head.

"No, no one named Lois." Beka replied. "May I ask who is calling?"

"I am Moira. I am the AI that was installed to protect this satellite and the people inside." She responded.

"There was an AI installed." Ahva said softly. "But when you told us that there was damage to the systems, everyone assumed that Moira was damaged as well."

Zally was angry. "Why did no one tell me?" She asked the girl.

Ahva shrunk away from her. "You were a stranger. For all we know, you were the one who damaged the systems."

Zally sighed. "I really need to work on my social skills." She mumbled.

"Maru," Moira said. "I need to know. Is there a Lois, Zally or Zalastrina onboard?"

"How does she know my full name?" Zally asked. "I never told anyone my real name."

"Do think that may be why they didn't trust you?" Beka said. "Moira? There is a Zally onboard."

"Good. May I speak with her?"

"Uh, hi. Moira, was it?" Zally asked tentatively.

"Yes." The AI said.

"Wh-why talk to me?" Zally asked.

"Because I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"For saving my people. I have been able to monitor your actions since you arrived. And your actions in the program. I have come to believe I can trust you."

"You've-been watching me?" Zally asked, letting this information sink in. "Have you been monitoring us since Harper, Dylan and Beka woke up?"

"Yes." Moira confirmed. "In fact, I have run several simulations on how your plan will work."

Zally waited. "And?"

"None of them ended well."

"Are there alternatives?" Zally asked.

"Yes. But your friend from Earth wants to speak with you at the moment." Moira switched over to command channel. "-don't think it's working. Moira, are there? Can you hear us? Is there a way you can contact the Maru?"

"Harper, you're coming though fine on this end." Beka said.

"Awesome!" Harper's voice came over the com. "I told you I could get it working. Boss, there's an-"

"-AI, we, know." Beka said. "We were just having a lovely chat."

"Really? Because all we got was a name."

"I apologize, Mister Harper." Moira said. "I had not meant to offend, but my first priority was Zally. Her safety is important to me. I have been considering you plan, and it occurs to my that it has a much higher success rate if you get rid of the Magog that are already on board."

"But that would attract the attention of any other swarm ships in the area." Beka said.

"There is even worse news." Moira said. "The unidentified object that set off the proximity alarms is filled with Magog."

"What?"

"My long range scanners reveal that it is an asteroid filled with Magog and outfitted with a slipstream engine, and what I assume to be a zero-point singularity projector."

"It's a Magog satellite." Dylan realized. "Like that one we saw headed toward Arkology."

"And I'm guessing that's bad." Zally said.

"Bad doesn't even cover it." Harper said. "Moira, how is your plan better than ours?"

"Because after the Magog are gone, I will release the people who are not infested and direct them to the Maru, at which point you will leave and I will hurl myself at the point singularity weapon, thereby disabling it and allowing you to escape."

"No!" Beka said. "You can't do that! You'd be killing thousands of your people."

"If you attempt to prevent me from executing my plan, I will perceive you as a threat to their survival and neutralize you." Moira replied calmly. "If you want to protect yourselves and the uninfected still onboard, I suggest you follow my plan."

"What do you want us to do?" Dylan asked.

"Return environmental and flight controls to me. I will handle everything else."

Zally groaned.

"What?" Beka asked.

"Environmental controls are in the engine room. That'll be Magog central. They'll be trying to get environmentals back." She informed her. "And flight controls are damaged beyond repair. We'd have to fly her manually. Or reconfigure it so that Moira can."

"The manual control look pretty messed up, Zal. I don't know if I can fix them." Harper said.

"I'll find a way up to command and give you a hand. Ahva, you need to take Beka down to the engine room and switch the environmentals back over to Moira. Moira," Zally addressed the AI. "Can you really detect who has been infested and who hasn't?"

"Yes."

"Then start unfreezing them and be ready to get them to the Maru. Dylan, I would do it myself, but I need to get back to command and help Seamus. You need to go back into one of the pods and get the people ready to leave. Tell them where the Maru is and tell them to move as fast as possible as soon as they can."

Dylan started to object. "Excuse me, but-"

"Yes, I know, you're usually the one giving orders. But right now isn't the time. There is too much to explain and I'm really sorry but you're going to have to trust me." Zally informed him. She turned to Beka. "You're gonna have to trust me, too."

"Give me one reason why I should." Beka said. "Just one."

"Boyagen."

Beka just stared. "What did you just say?"

"Boyagen. That's where you were born, wasn't it? Or was it?" Zally asked. "I know things. About your past. If you want to know how, help me save these people. If we live through this, I'll tell you everything I know. Deal?"

Beka thought. "Deal."

Zally nodded. "Good. Dylan, did you hear all of that?"

Beka had forgotten he was on com. "Yeah, I heard. I'll have them ready."

"Be sure to initiate the program only." Zally instructed. "You'll wake up with amnesia again if you don't."

"Thanks for the tip. Hunt out." The com cut out.

Zally turned to Beka and Ahva. "Ahva, take Beka to the engine room and help her with the environmentals." Zally took a whistle from around her neck and handed it to the girl. "Here. If you start blowing, don't stop. It won't stop them but it will slow them down. But only use it if you need to. It'll get their attention and make you a target and once you are, you've got to keep running. Got it?"

The girl nodded.

"Good. Now get going."


	14. Chapter 14: As It Seems

_**As it seems**_

* * *

Zally had to sneak into command. There were Magog all over the place! The door slid open silently. Command was dark.

"Shay?" she called softly. "Seamus, are you here?"

"Zal?" A voice said. She cringed at his volume. "Keep your voice down, Seamus. Magog, remember?" The lights came back on. "That's a bit better." She said. "Have you gotten anywhere with the controls?"

"Not really. The systems are really messed up. I don't even know who you keep this place running."

Zally grinned as she moved to help him sort out the machine. "I'm sure that's what your friends think about you and the Andromeda, Harper. I saw what you did to the Maru. I can only imagine what it's like working on a ship that's three hundred years out of her comfort zone."

Harper shot her a sideways glance. "So, uh, how'd you know?"

"About what?"

"You know, about Beka, and Boyagen?"

Zally paused. "After we survive this, I'll tell you."

"Oh, come on, Zal." Harper pleaded. "You were never this secretive when we were kids."

She smiled at him sadly. "I never _had_ to be this secretive when we were kids."

He stopped working and turned to face her. "Come on, Zal. We were buddies."

When she shook her head, he added. "Please? For old times sake?"

She shook her head again. "If I told you, you wouldn't trust me."

That worried him. "In that case, should I be trusting you at all?" He asked.

"Do you really have a choice?" She asked kindly.

"I 'spose not." He admitted.

"Then isn't it better not knowing _if_ you should trust me and just trust in me? For old times sake?" She pleaded.

Harper realized that he'd lost this round. "…I hate it when people make me eat my own words." He grumbled.

She grinned and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "Then stop being so quotable."

* * *

"There's a central access conduit that runs through the center of the satellite." Ahva explained. She expertly ran her fingers around the panel, and popped it off. "It's not on the specs, but everyone knows about it."

"With the obvious exception of Zally, of course." Beka said. She crawled into the conduit behind the girl. "I thought you all trusted her. She did save your lives."

"That may be," Ahva said. "But my people didn't survive untouched by Nietzscheans and Magog for hundreds of years by trusting every single sentient that passed by our planet. We were always very choosy about who to trust. We only trusted Lois because we had no other choice."

"That seems to happen a lot with her." Beka said.

Ahva continued. "After Moira was disabled, we had no way of knowing what was going on outside or if any of us were going to be revived again. Some of us tried, but they never came back and Lois didn't tell us what happened. She was pretty shook up though. We thought she was to one who killed them."

"And what do you think now?" Beka asked.

Ahva bit her lip. "To be completely honest, I still don't know. Moira, if that is Moira, seems to trust her. I don't see that we have a choice."

"Great." Beka grumbled.

"What about you?" Ahva asked. "Do you really trust her?"

Beka hesitated. "…I trust her about as far as I trust a Nietzschean."

Ahva nodded. "That's what I thought."

* * *

"ARRGH!" Zally threw a bundle of cables on the floor. "Why won't the stupid thing work!"

"Zal, keep your voice down." Harper said. "You'll attract the Magog."

Zally didn't hear him. She was looking past him, at the door. "Too late."

Then Seamus heard. Magog whispering. Well, what qualified as whispering.

"Zal," he said. "Get over here."

She silently walked across the room, and stood near enough to the door to hear the Magog. They looked at each other.

They were trapped.

* * *

"You've got to listen to me!" Dylan shouted. "The satellite is invaded with Magog! We have a ship but you have to listen!"

"Perhaps I can help?" Dylan turned to see the old woman he and Beca had talked to before when they were trying to find 'Lois.'

"I don't know if you will be able to help." Dylan said.

The old woman just smiled. "Dylan, my boy. Appearances can be deceiving, especially here." With that, she morphed into a young woman. "You see, Dylan? Not all is as it seems."


	15. Chapter 15: Be Ready To Run

**Be Ready To Run**

* * *

The doors to the control room were finally pried open. One of the Magog commanded, "Find the humans!" and the rest started searching. The leader gave two of them a different order. "Repair the piloting systems. The others will appreciate what the humans call, 'meals on wheels.'

The leader heard a small sound from behind them. He looked, and smelled the air.

"Do you sense something, Great One?"

The Great One paused. "No. Return to your jobs."

Zally and Seamus shook in their hidey-hole. They had been listening, and could barely contain their fear when referred to as meals on wheels. Zally contained herself a little better, and slapped her hand over Seamus' mouth before he could say anything. They looked at each other. How could they warn the others?

* * *

"Moira?" Dylan asked cautiously.

The woman nodded. "Now let us return things to normal, shall we?" There was a flash, and the marketplace disappeared and had been replaced be a sterile white room. The people too had changed too. They were now wearing white jump suits, the same as Ahva. And there were only a few hundred people.

"Attention. Your attention, peoples." Moira called. The people looked toward her. "This is Dylan Hunt." She gestured at him. "He is here to help you escape. Follow his instruction."

Then she disappeared. The people looked to Dylan. _Ok. That's one way to get people's attention._

* * *

Ahva and Beka had reached environmentals. Beka motioned for Ahva to remain behind her, and moved into the room, gun drawn. But there were no Magog. Ahva followed her into the room. "Where'd they all go?" She asked softly.

Beka shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't care to find out. Let's get this over with." She turned to work on the controls, but they had been thrashed. "What-?"

"It must have been the Magog." Ahva said. "To prevent anyone from stopping them. It doesn't matter." She said.

"Doesn't matter?" Beka asked. "What do you mean, it doesn't matter?"

Ahva walked over to the other side of the room. "There's a master control switch in this panel." Again, Ahva expertly located and removed a hidden panel. Inside there was a series of switches. She flipped them all up, and replaced the panel.

"That's it?" Beka asked.

Ahva nodded. "Now let's get out of here."

* * *

"The manual controls are repaired, Great One." One of the Magog reported.

Zally and Harper stood a little straighter at this. The Magog had done their job for them!

"Good. You, and you. Stay here and guard this room. There are humans onboard that are no longer in their cryo-pods." The leader instructed. Then he and the others left.

Zally peeked through a small crack. The two magog guards had not remained in the room.

_They must be guarding it from the outside._ She thought. She drew her blaster just in case, and Seamus did the same. They burst out of the closet and surveyed the room. Empty. They both sighed in relief.

* * *

"Beka, Ahva, are you back to the Maru yet?" Moira asked.

"Yes." Beka replied. "Just got in."

"Good. Remain there. I will direct everyone to the Maru. Prepare for boarding."

* * *

Moira blinked back into the Program, startling Dylan . "Dylan, does everyone know where to go?"

He nodded. "Yeah, they do. Are we ready?"

Moira nodded. "The plan is commencing. The defrost protocols have already begun. Be ready to run."


	16. Chapter 16: The Abyss' Aftermath

**The Abyss' Aftermath**

* * *

The Magog hadn't quite done their job for them. They still needed to rewire the manual controls so that Moira could operate them. But they were running out of time.

"This isn't going to work, Shay." Zally said.

"It will work because it has to." Harper said.

"Seamus, we are out of time! One-"

"Seamus, Zally, I see that you have repaired the controls. But you need to wire them into my mainframe if this is going to work."

Zally sighed heavily. "I would love to, Moira. But we are out of time. One of us is going to need to stay here to fly the satellite."

"And it's not going to be you." Harper said.

"And why not?" Zally asked. "It's my fault that we're in this position!"

"How could it be your-" He started to ask, but Zally interrupted him.

"Because the Abyss was using me!" She screamed. "The Magog are here because of me!" Tears streamed from her eyes.

Harper shook his head. "No, Zal. I can't have been-"

"It was. I coordinated Nietzschean attacks as well as Magog. I was possibly the only one who knew they were working together. I not only watched, but coordinated the detonation of Earth. Then, on that last day, when the war ended, I felt the Abyss ripped from my mind. I was free! I hid, I had no choice. They would have killed me, because we lost. So I fled to the rebellion. I thought I would be safe there. But they attacked me too. I finally changed my name, and my looks, and then I was safe. But I still had It's memories. Things I learned from when I was under It's control. That's how I know things. Now you know. Go save yourself, before I get you killed too." She was crying by now.

Harper listened with unbelievable anger. Not at her, but at the Abyss. And he finally realized something. "You want to die, don't you?" He asked.

She closed her eyes and nodded. "I don't want to be used like that again, to destroy the people I love."

He stepped closer and took her hands in his. "You won't be. The Abyss is dead. Gone. Pushing up daisies. It can't hurt anything or control anyone anymore."

She looked at him with red eyes. "How can you know?"

"Because my friends and I killed the Abyss."

It was then that Moira choose to interrupt them. "Decompression complete. Jettisoning Magog." They heard a whooshing sound and the scrape of claws against metal. "Jettison complete. Please direct the satellite toward the point-singularity weapon."

Zally took the controls and directed the satellite where she was told. "Preparing for impact. Activating specified cryogenic pods. Normalizing environmentals."

* * *

Dylan awoke from stasis. He stepped out of the pod carefully. He remembered the last time he'd gotten out of one, but this time was different. He was a little light-headed, but otherwise fine. He looked around. He saw others getting out as well, and making they're way towards the Maru.

Dylan turned on his com. "Beka, they're headed your way. Prepare for departure."

"Will do."

* * *

"Zal, the satellite is already well on it's way." Harper said. "Not much is going to be able to stop it, and the Magog aren't going to know it's going to hit them until it's too late. Let's go back to the Maru."

"You go back to the Maru." Zally said as she looked straight ahead. "There's no reason for you to die."

Harper picked up a first aid kit and rummaged through it. "Zally… I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes. "So am I. I wish that we could have had more time together."

"No, not that. I'm sorry for this."

It was too late that she felt the syringe, and the sedative taking over. "No, Shay…" was all she could say before she slid to the floor.

Harper fused the controls, and picked up Zally's slender form. "I left you behind once. I'm never doing that again."


	17. Chapter 17: Safe?

**Safe?**

* * *

Dylan reach the Maru last, making sure that everyone got onboard.

"Three minutes to impact." Moira warned.

"Is everyone onboard?" Dylan asked Beka.

She shook her head. "We're still missing Harper and Lois."

"I'll go and find them. They can't be too far."

"Be quick, or we might end up as cosmic roadkill." Dylan ran up the corridor to find them. He met them about half-way to the control room. Harper was carrying Zally.

"What happened?" Dylan asked as he took her out of Harper's arms.

"She didn't want to leave." Harper replied.

"Two minutes to impact." Moira warned.

They ran to the Maru, and Harper shut the airlock behind them.

"Beka, get us out of here!" Dylan told her.

She did. The computer counted down the seconds to impact.

"Should we get to slipstream?" Ahva asked.

"There is nothing I would like better." Beka said. "But it's at least ten light minutes to the nearest slip point."

"Maru." Moira called. "I am jettisoning my slipstream drive. I am using the last of my power to activate and overload it. Turn about, now."

Beka did.

"What are you doing?" Ahva asked fearfully. "If we go back, we're going to die!"

"No, we're not. Look." She pointed at the overloaded drive. "Moira's going to save you, one last time."

The slipstream drive overloaded and imploded, creating a temporary slip point. Beka went in, full speed ahead.

"Where are we going? Do you even know?" Ahva asked.

"Anywhere but here. That's all I need to know." Beka said.

The countdown ticked down to zero, and as the Maru escaped through the slip point, the explosion clipped the tail end of the cargo ship, knocking everyone unconscious.

* * *

Beka woke with a sore neck and back. She'd been slumped forward in her pilot's seat for some length of time. Groaning, she unbuckled and stretched. Then she heard small sounds from behind her. _Ahva. _She thought.

She looked around the back of her seat. "Ahva, are you alright?"

The girl nodded and held the back of her head. "I think I hit my head on the railing." She stood up slowly. "Where are we?" She asked.

Beka looked at the screen. "We're still in the Triangulum galaxy, but I don't think we're near any friendly civilization." She checked the engine stats. "Ah, crap."

"What's wrong?" Ahva asked, immediately alarmed.

"That blast wave that caught us as we were leaving fried our slipstream engine. We aren't going anywhere."

"Can you fix it?"

Beka shrugged. "Maybe. It'll take awhile, though." Beka turned on the com system. "Harper, I need you to go to the engine room, see if you can get the slipstream back online." She waited a bit and called for him again. "Harper?"

"Maybe he's unconscious." Ahva suggested.

Beka got up and moved toward the airlock. There was Dylan, Harper and Zally, all unconscious. She moved over to Harper and lightly shook him. "Harper, wake up. Seamus!"

"Don't wanna." He said, and shifted over to his side.

Beka rolled her eyes and pulled him up by his ear.

His eyes shot open immediately. "OOOWWW! Alright, I'm up, I'm up." He glanced over at Zally, and moved to wake her. She didn't stir. "Zal?" He asked, and shook her again. Still, she didn't wake. "Pass me a scanner."

He scanned her. _Life signs: Weak. Cause: Severe brain injury, Treatment: None_. He swore under his breath. "We have to get her back to the Andromeda," he said, panicked.

"We can't get back." Beka said. They all looked at her questioningly.

"We've lost the slip stream engines."


	18. Prequel: A Nietzschean Battlecruiser

**Preveiw for The Saddest of all Words: Home**

* * *

A Nietzschean Battlecruiser floated though Triangulum space. It's battle-scarred panels and armaments told tales of valiant battle and sieges. The symbol on the side said that it belonged to the Drago-Kazov Pride. The captain, seated in the control room, was examining maps of local space to find a place to repair the ship, when he noticed a cargo ship, passing aimlessly by them.

"What is a cargo ship doing all the way out here?" He mused. "Run a scan of that cargo ship." He told one of his lieutenants.

"It's looks like her slip stream isn't operational. Should we bring her onboard?" The lieutenant asked.

"Maybe. Are there life signs onboard?" The captain asked. The lieutenant checked. "Yes, sir."

"How many?"

"Just over a few hundred."

"Bring her on board." The captain ordered. "That many people on such a small ship? It's probably a slave transport. And we'll need help repairing this ship."

"On it, sir."


End file.
